Writing Christmas Cards Proves: I Can't Write Well Any More!

Image from Gawker

Every year, The Other Half and I send out home-made cards. I'm a graphic artist, after all, so we usually come up with something funny: American Gothic with two farmers for instance. Or one with our heads superimposed onto an old couple with their screaming grandchildren. This years we did the Saturday Night Live "D*ck in a Box" guys, for a particularly dirty one for a change. But, every year, I re-discover something about myself: I can't write well anymore. I mean the physical act of writing with a pen.

My technique vacillates between cursive, printed letters, all caps, upper and lower, and back again. I put too many humps in my Ms and Ns. . .or not enough humps. I make Os that look like lower case As. I have to retrace over letters to clarify what they are. I occasionally have to cross something out, or even rip up a card or envelope, and start over. I spend so little time with a pen and paper--outside of a few quick notes--that I just don't do it well anymore. Assuming I was very good at it in the first place!

But, I'm not the only one.

[Excerpt]

On Christmas Cards and the Death of Handwriting

Christmas cards—if they possess any utility other than excuses for networking or sleeves for staged photos and obnoxious form-letters about little Allen's success on the soccer field and getting over his chronic butt cyst—act as a kind of benchmark. Buying a box and sending some out makes you feel like you've stepped into an adult world. You have an address book. You buy stamps in bulk. You now acknowledge calendar events days before they happen. . .

Read more at: Gawker